Citizenlink quotes Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, in its report on the Massachusetts legislature’s repeal of the 1913 law that was used to prevent out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying there:
With the protective barrier removed, out-of-state, same-sex couples who ‘marry’ here will sue to seek recognition in their home states … further eroding the people’s right to define marriage.
Wait a minute – “the people’s right to define marriage”? What happened to marriage being an age-old institution established by God himself? So if, say, the people of France decided that the benefits of marriage should be extended same-sex couples, the MFI would respect the “people’s right to define marriage”? Doesn’t seem likely.
It may be, as Emily K suggested to me, that Mineau really means “the people’s right to define marriage God’s way,” which in practical terms means “the people’s right to vote as long as they do so the way we tell them to.” If that’s the case, it’s understandable that groups like the MFI would leave that part of the sentence unspoken.
And hey, this is politics; a little thing like the Ninth Commandment can hardly be allowed to get in the way of God’s own political agenda.
More importantly, in regard to “the people’s right”, this action was taken by a legislature that was elected by people who knew that this was an issue when they voted for their legislators. With each successive election over the last decade, the people of Massachusetts have elected increasingly pro-gay-marriage legislatures. Indeed, since the fight against gay marriage has started here, not one legislator who voted against banning gay marriage has failed to gain re-election, while several that voted to ban gay marriage have been replaced, all of them replaced by pro-gay legislators.
So, the people of Massachusetts *have* spoken, and they are *for* gay marriage.
I’m sick and tired of hearing people talk about “unelected Judges” and the like. The government does not go strictly by popular vote because that is an ineffective way to properly represent ALL of the people of this country. It’s one way to make Rhode Island stand on equal ground with Texas.
This does not mean that the people are not involved. This nation is governed by a democratic republic. Nobody can make it into an official position without the true consent of the populous – people vote for officials that they trust to make decisions. It is flawed, yes – but right now it’s not terrible. Legal decisions, such as the ones that judges grapple with, are not for the laymen to grapple with. They are for legal scholars (JUDGES) to deal with. The governors of states are elected by people, and judge appointment is what one must consider when electing a governor. Just like the current presidential race has been stricken with people obsessed with the candidates’ choices for Supreme Court.
If the Christian Right is going to whine about “unelected judges,” why aren’t they whining about the extremely conservative supreme court that was put in place by their fearless leader W? Because those judges are doing what they want. It’s about “unelected judges” when judges like the ones the Governator put in place make decisions, never when judges on their side are put in place.
Emily– it’s because they are not interested in judges, legislatures, or any of it. they are interested in 1) being right and 2) being in control.
I agree with Ben. Just look at the way their arguments have already shifted. First, they complained that “activist judges” were acting out of turn and that such matters should be left up to the legislature. Now that state legislatures are going against their wishes, they’re saying that it shouldn’t be up to elected officials, but decided directly by the people.
What I want to know is this: What argument will they shift to when the people start voting against them?
I believe they will move on to the power of the militant homosexual lobby and the debbil is making it all happen. If the initiative fails in California, it will then be the people of california are forcing their perverted beliefs on the rest of the country. they have already made that arugment in MA.
They can run, but they can’t hide. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to deal with the fact that they’ve lost the culture war and are about as relevant as George Wallace standing at the entrance of University of Alabama demanding a continuation of segregation.
This is a nation that mandates “liberty and justice for all,” not “liberty and justice for those deemed worthy by those in contol.”
This scares the daylights out of bigots like these.
Ninth Commandment? We don’t need any stinking Ninth Commandment! We’re Cherry Pickers, after all. What’s important is that God said gay people are bad, at least according to our interpretation of the Bible. Now get out there and start oppressing some gay people in God’s name.
To Jarred, I would like to point out that people *have* started voting against the haters, in several states now (Massachusetts, Arizona, hopefully soon California) and the haters have not changed their tune a single note: they’re still claiming that somehow the people haven’t spoken, and the evil homosexuals are forcing everyone to go along with us without letting anyone vote. In other words, their claims are completely in opposition to reality.
We can expect as they lose more and more, they will simply continue to lie about everything, until it becomes so undeniable that they have lost that such claims are completely laughable on their face. At that time, expect them to develop a major martyrdom complex.
Kris Mineau talks about the “people’s right to define marriage” and if anyone ever read a history of marriage in the various cultures and times in the history of humanity…that statement certainly is correct. People defined what marriage is, God (or the gods) just gave their blessing (or their curse depending).
Religion has always been split on almost any issue, doctrine, theological belief, you can imagine. I don’t think you can get two Christians (of the same tradition) in the same room and get a 100% agreement on all subjects pertaining to faith. Same-sex marriage is no different from the millions of other issues that cause division and separation.
The Church does have the right to bind things on earth, and in doing so, those things will be bound in heaven. (The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew 18:18) The Church has a right to define marriage, and some churches have done so to include same-sex couples. But that is between the congregation and the church within its boundaries.
As a nation that prides itself on not having a state-run church or a church-run state, we have the right to define what is marriage, but we also have an obligation to not descrimate or alienate others if it is based on bias or prejudice. Maybe I don’t think Jews and Catholics should marry, but is that cause to make it a law? Maybe I don’t believe in divorce, should I get a petition made so that divorce becomes illegal? Or should I be broad-minded and allow each individual to decide these matters for themselves?
(And for anyone who is going to jump in and say…why not let children marry or why not allow polygomy, etc etc, save your arguments unless that is what you advocate.) My comments are strictly concerning two consenting adults.
(As a side note, I do think people of different faiths should marry if their love can overcome their differences, and I also believe divorce is necessary at times when two people no longer are compatable as mates. I just mentioned the two items above for argument sake.)
It is because of people like Kris Mineau that I wrote this into my blog (entry titled “Lucy and the Football” after these feelings) last night. It is in the bottom paragraphs, because I also chronicled a very weird week.
Semi-relevant stuff:
Before all this, we’d been in wedding hell. L’Ailee and I will have to re-marry somehow in order for our marriage to be legally recognized in New York–it was invalidated in Massachusetts…
….We are a bit skittish, actually. There are things we’d love to redo. Some of my relatives wish they’d have been there back on New Year’s Eve 2004/2005 (yay!). I wish I’d worn aqua instead of lavender. L’Ailee still feels bad about wearing “some poor Asian woman’s hair” for extensions and then cutting them out and throwing them away hours after we married. But we’d really put thought into our wedding! It was pretty wonderful–it was a New Year’s Eve party interrupted by a wedding at almost-midnight….We don’t really want another wedding! And it’s so damn much more expensive to travel now anyway–we don’t want to ask everyone to do it! So maybe we’ll elope right before New Year’s and then come back and have New Year’s at our house, I don’t know. We have to think fast.
The hell of it is, we’re also scared it will be taken away from us. Again. It was before. I talked about feeling like Charlie Brown, when confronted with Lucy and the football, at Talk2Action a couple years ago. I wrote that article because Christianist groups were claiming that same-sex couples don’t *really* want marriage, and I wanted to talk LGBT peoples’ feelings–you know, those irrelevant little things that get neglected in these arguments. We have been together in some fashion for 16 years, and all that time, same-sex marriage seemed like it was right around the corner. I actually wore L’Ailee’s tiny engagement ring, briefly, the summer after I graduated high school, and then we broke up briefly, and then the judges said there was no right to SSM in Hawaii after all, and then L’Ailee pawned the ring. We want reassurance, and the right-wingers won’t give us any. They’re still going and going and going. We feel no choice but to kick that football again, because after all, we have way more faith in each other than we do in judges and governments. But we’re not running this time.
What argument will they shift to when the people start voting against them?
Voter fraud?